


Ghost Town

by Atlanova



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24344365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanova/pseuds/Atlanova
Summary: The rain continues to fall hard, meandering down from the angry, dark clouds above them. It brings muffled splatters to the snow-covered grass, melting the white crystals into puddles. Both parents wonder, in that moment, if this is just the aftermath of a horrific storm that rumbled many, many years ago.__________Alice and FP visit their son's grave.
Relationships: Alice Cooper & FP Jones II, Alice Cooper/FP Jones II
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> hiya folks. firstly, for anyone who has read 'for all that it's worth...' (my only other falice fic so far) you may know that i talked a bit about starting a short falice multichap. this is not it! i'll probably be working on that early july. 
> 
> secondly, TRIGGER WARNINGS: in this fic there are talks of domestic abuse, adoption, teenage pregnancy, the loss of a child, alcoholism, and grief.
> 
> thirdly, this is a really sad fic and it was real sad for me to write, but it has some inspiring moments. hope you like it <3

Ceasing her car's engine, Alice sighs. A familiar feeling of some kind of sorrowed weight waves over her again, somehow crushing everything she feels, leaving a horrifically dark and empty space.

She lets her forehead rest against the cool leather of the steering wheel. Her fingers grip around it, too. Her gut is telling her to turn the car back around and just leave this insufferable part of her life behind. But her heavy heart is done with being overruled by logic - by always doing the right thing, because it never works out the way it's supposed to. 

Standing outside the trailer, Alice closes her eyes. She breathes in the distant smell of smoke that reminds her of her teenage Southside days. For a second, it's almost peaceful. 

Unsure why she doesn't wait for the door to be answered, Alice lets herself in after knocking twice. Her mind feels numb as her eyes lift to the somewhat outdated interior. She steps inside and looks to the small living room, which also happens to be the largest part of the trailer. The smell of alcohol hits her, though it's not as strong as she thought it would be. 

"Alice?" 

Her eyes find FP as he looks at her, slightly perplexed. Alice slowly notices that his stubble is a little overgrown, and there are dark shadows underneath his eyes that look to have been there for an eternity.

_"Alice?"_

His voice brings her back to the present, and she shakes her head numbly at him. "Are you drunk?"

"Not yet."

She doesn't answer - or more, she finds she is unable to answer. Another wave of sorrow and burning culpability falls on her. She closes her eyes again as if it will help, and brings her palm to press against her temple. 

"What's happened? What's wrong?" he asks, concern rough in his tired voice as he walks closer to her. 

"Nothing. Nothing, it doesn't matter," she whispers hoarsely, waving a hand at him, beginning to panic as she turns to the door. 

FP frowns and darts forward. He gently spins her back around, and his glassy eyes focus on her. "It does matter, or you wouldn't be here."

Alice sighs and attempts to roll her eyes, but burning tears fall down her face. With FP's hands still gently on her shoulders, she reaches up to wipe her cheek, smearing salty water droplets across it. Her hand shakes as she brings it back down. _When did she start crying?_

Forcing herself to look at FP, she shakes her head and tries to ignore the panic in his eyes. 

"Is it Hal?" he questions, focus flickering around her exhausted countenance. He doesn't know if he can still read her the way he used to. "Alice, did Hal-"

"It wasn't Hal!" she croaks out. Her hand waves around again, before falling to his chest. She is oblivious to the fact that her fingers grab a fistful of his shirt. "Hal didn't do anything."

"Then what the hell happened?" he demands quietly, unable to handle the way she is drawing this out, though he knows she doesn't mean to. FP steps closer to her and brings his hand to the side of her face. "Why'd you come here, hmm? There's gotta be a reason."

Alice lets go of his shirt's material as she manages to calm. She swallows and opens her eyes, although she is unable to look at him. "FP, I think-" Alice inhales quickly, her chest still constricted. "I need you to-" she stops and shakes her head, struggling to arrange her thoughts, "-do you remember when I told you about Charles?"

FP dips his head, overcome with a surge of pain that washes over him at the reminder. He feels his eyes start to burn. "Yeah. Yeah, I … I remember."

Alice swallows and lifts her gaze to his eyes. "Since Betty found out that she has … _had_ … a half-brother, she's been … asking me questions."

"Questions?" FP shakes his head, confused again. "What questions?" 

"I ... I don't _know_!" Alice squeezes her eyes shut and drops her head, her grip on his shirt tightening again.

FP leads her to the couch and sits beside her. He allows one to hand fall from her shoulder to her arm, his thumb making small circular motions on her elbow. He hasn't exactly seen her like this since she told him about their son a week ago. Then, she could barely get a word out between the cries and she was so torn. He despised watching her fall apart then, and he hates it now. 

"Alice," FP whispers, realising that she is regaining the ability to breathe again. She holds his gaze for a millisecond before shaking her head and hoarsely apologising over and over again. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he tells her dismissively, trying to smile for her but he feels like it failed, somehow. 

Alice takes a deep breath and attempts to sort herself out. Part of her hates that she is breaking yet again in front of her ex-lover, father of her deceased son, and the person she's felt so distant from for twenty years or so. She had briefly wondered during the last week whether the news about Charles would somehow break the steely barriers between them, but for the most part she thinks it makes him hate her even more than he probably already does. 

"After I told you about Charles, I never wanted to see you again," she says in a hushed whisper, as if it was never supposed to be voiced. "I couldn't do it, because all I'd have seen is our son."

FP watches more tears fall freely down her face, and he can't help but feel a little helpless. And disappointed. And pissed off at himself. 

"But then … Betty asked me who his father is, and where he is, and what his name is, and where he lives, and why I fucking gave him up in the first place!" she cries, leaning forward and rubbing her forehead with her palm.

"Did you tell her?" 

Alice slowly turns her head to him, giving him a look that he feels he should be able to decipher, but finds an inability to. "What, that he died? _No!_ How could I? He's her brother, and I … I-" she starts, but then stands and shakes her head of the thought. FP stands and tries to reach out to her, but she holds him literally at arm's length as she steadily grips his forearms. "No. _No_ , that isn't even why I came here."

FP swallows and tilts his head at her. He manages to loosen her hold on his arms, before stepping closer. His tired eyes bore into hers. "Then why did you come here, Al?" 

She blinks at the use of her old nickname. What surprises her most is that it just sort of rolled off his tongue as if they were seventeen again. She sighs slightly and another tear slips down her face. "I need to do something, and I ….I need you with me."

He frowns as if he is trying to grasp at what she's telling him, but can't quite get it. There's a deep and hollow sadness to her eyes that he can see is swallowing her up. 

"FP, I … I want us to go and see our son."

______________________________________

FP runs a hand through his hair as he peers into the distance. The December mist is thick and clouding overhead. The occasional bird squaks, and apart from that and the slight breeze whistling in his ears, there is silence. It makes him shiver, or perhaps that's the cold. There are rows upon rows of headstones, and FP drops his head, struggling to get past the reality that his son's name is carved on one of them.

Last night, he tried his hardest not to touch any alcohol, but the heavy dread and sorrow of the impending visit to the cemetery overruled any short-lived commitment to sobriety he may have had. 

He had shaved, though. For one, FP knows he's a lousy father to Jughead, and to JB whom he hadn't seen in years. He has no doubt that if things with Charles had gone differently, that he'd have been a shitty father to him, too. He knows fine that Jughead has walked out many a time due to his father''s seemingly constant inability to walk without falling over and to speak without slurring his words, often rendering the boy homeless. As much as FP despises it and wants to punch _something_ for - and apart from the fact that FP knows he would never raise a hand to his kids - he is his father. 

Last night, he stood in front of the small mirror he'd found somewhere within the junk of his trailer. With a bitter taste of alcohol in his mouth, he'd squinted at his Serpent jacket. He'll always be proud that he managed to build a respectful kingdom from the disorientated rubble that was the Serpents when his old man was King, but it's only something he did because his father physically beat him if he dared think about doing something academic, or anything that wasn't spending his life at the Southside.

As FP remembered this, still standing in front of the mirror as dusk shadowed over, suddenly the jacket felt like his father, too. It's part of who FP is, but the thought of standing at his son's grave wearing it is one he very strongly detested. And so he'd found a plain black suit jacket that he must have worn to Mary and Fred Andrews' wedding back in the day, and paired it with white shirt. It's nothing lavish at all, but it's simple and smart and definitely not something his father would have worn. But more importantly, FP felt that if Alice was okay with visiting their son's grave even when he is constantly drinking, then the least Charles deserves is to have a clean-shaven father and, for today, one that ditched his jacket. 

It's like now he could somehow show Charles something of what _he_ is. But if that counts for anything anymore, FP has no goddamn idea. 

The gravel crunches behind him, and he turns to see Alice's car park a few metres away. He watches for a second or two as she sort of doesn't move. She just stares ahead, as if she's finally realised where she is. 

FP feels a small sad smile cross his features. He knows this going to be difficult for both of them, but Alice carried that boy for nine months, and - although he still doesn't know why - then handed him over to strangers when he was only a few minutes of age. She probably wasn't ever expecting to meet him again, but if she was maybe hoping, then it sure as hell wasn't supposed to be like this.

Alice finally relents the tension from her fingers and lets them uncurl from the steering wheel. This was her idea, and she wants to do this. She just isn't sure where the hell to start. 

With a heavy sigh, she unbuckles her seat belt and steps out of the car. The cold breeze hits her and she shivers in her coat slightly. 

Out of the lingering mist, FP appears, although it takes Alice a few seconds to recognize him. With his hands in the pockets of his suit, the corners of his mouth twitch into a soft smile. 

She sighs and closes her eyes. She would have made some sort of snide comment towards this tidier appearance, but she feels too exhausted for that, and FP doesn't deserve it. Hell, he never fucking did. Especially today of all days; she doesn't doubt that it was no coincidence he decided to tidy himself up on the same day they've come to finally mourn their son. 

"You ready?" he asks softly, running a hand through his hair. 

Wordlessly, Alice nods. She purses her lips and tries to swallow down the burning lump in her throat. FP must see it, for he gives her shoulder a slight squeeze. 

"Are you?" she asks after a few seconds. The cold wind blows gently around them and whips his hair, and he looks as if he's squinting at her.

He coughs awkwardly and shakes his head, as if in decision, before giving her a flicker of a smile. "No, I'm not. But it's long overdue."


	2. Chapter Two

Their feet crunch on the wet gravel as they walk slowly side by side through row upon row of headstones. Both their hearts are thumping hard as they scour every name on each one. Given that Alice was one of the few who attended Charles's funeral, she should be able to remember where his headstone is, but she hadn't visited since the funeral, and now - although she hates it - they're all just headstones lined up in five long confusing rows. 

Melted snow dusts the top of each headstone, and the various bouquets of flowers sit damp and ruined in front of the deceased who must have been loved. 

FP feels a tight grip on his arm, and he spins around to see Alice has stopped walking and is staring at the ground. Swallowing loudly, he lets his wary focus fall to the headstone beside Alice.

"No …" FP whispers, the strangled sound breaking the dismal silence of the cemetery. A lump burns in his throat and somehow the tears just erupt. Rain falls onto his forehead as he turns and walks a few steps away from the headstone. Alice's tries to reach out to him, but he walks further through the sombre hues of winter mist. 

It feels as if someone is stamping hard on his chest, squeezing the life from it. His heart has been crushed in a matter of seconds - truly, truly crushed into tiny shards that cannot be put back together. His fists clench and unclench as he still stands with his back to the headstone, almost wanting to run back and dig up all that dirt and mud as if it will bring his son back. 

A type of agony that FP has never endured before burns a fire in his heart, in his gut, in his mind. Everywhere. It's everywhere, stabbing each inch of his body with a lethal pain. 

Letting out a loud groan that's stiffled with sobs, FP bends over, his hands on his knees. He shuts his eyes tight to block out the image of his son's name carved on the stone, and brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

Silent tears spill from Alice's own eyes as she watches him in the distance. Truthfully, she hadn't known how he would react. But currently feeling plunged under a bottomless ocean herself, she's well aware that knowing about Charles's death is a whole world away from standing in front of his headstone. 

The rain continues to fall hard, meandering down from the angry, dark clouds above them. It brings muffled splatters to the snow-covered grass, melting the white crystals into puddles. Both parents wonder, in that moment, if this is just the aftermath of a horrific storm that rumbled many, many years ago. 

FP slowly stands and inhales the cold frosty air, before turning back around to Alice. His heart drops to his stomach, and the pain continues to stab at him. He doesn't suppose it will ever numb, now. 

Alice looks at him when she hears his footsteps behind her, but she misses his gaze. In fact, he doesn't meet her eyes at all as he crouches in front of their son's headstone. A tear falls from her eye as she watches him. 

FP feels his eyes burn as he brings an almost shaking hand to the middle of the stone. His fingers latch onto the side of it, hesitant and unsteady as he tries to gather strength. He shakes his head and drops it, letting it hang there as his blurry gaze focuses on the dew and speckles of snow crushing the one-thriving weeds.

With a sharp sniff, he looks back up, before brushing flecks of snow from the stone. It's icy to his fingers, but now his son's name is the only uncovered thing on the stone. Now - for the first time in twenty years - it looks partly like the other names around them; clear to read as if it has been tended to by a doting family member for the upcoming Christmas festivities.

He can hear Alice crying softly behind him, and he would have turned around to her if it weren't for the fact that his eyes have cleared just enough so he can properly read what's carved on the stone. 

_HERE LIES_  
_CHARLES FORSYTHE SMITH_  
_1988 - 2008_

FP's eyes widen as he reads it over and over again to be sure he didn't misread. Finally, after enduring the punch to the stomach at the revelation, he turns to Alice, who is standing with a shaking hand over her mouth. 

"Forsythe?" he whispers, his cold fingers falling from the stone as he stands.

She nods as the tiniest of sad smiles flickers over her countenance. Breathing unsteadily, she catches the array of sympathy, pain, guilt, and sorrow in FP's eyes as he somewhat numbly pulls her into him. She encloses her arms around him, before turning her head against his chest in the direction of the headstone. 

"I didn't know if you'd be pissed if you ever found out," she whispers, feeling his hand on the back of her head. "You share the name with your Father, and I know you … you hated him. But it wasn't after him, FP. It was after you," she croaks out. FP struggles to understand what she's saying as the words rapidly fall from her mouth, but he gets the jist of it. "I tried to double barrel his surname to have both of ours', but they wouldn't let me. Apparently … apparently I had to get your written consent, which would have meant telling you, and-"

"Sssh, Alice," FP mutters, gently pushing her off him. He holds her tear-stained face in his hands and meets her eyes. "Thank you."

She nods distractedly before falling back into him, almost collapsing on her weak legs. FP holds her tighter as the rain pelts harder, turning into a loud and chaotic kind of white noise around them. 

___________________

"Hey, you okay?" 

Alice feels FP briefly touch her elbow, and she slowly breaks herself from the blur of grief-fuelled thoughts that had been swirling around her head for … well, she doesnt know how long. "What?" 

The rain has settled, and now the snow that was once flakes of never-ending cold lay disintegrated in puddles of desolation. FP gives her a sad smile, but the melancholy of the December weather is made worse for both of them; the void of no cause is overwhelmed by their mourning and sorrow. "I asked if you're alright."

Alice blinks slowly and shakes her head. "I thought I would be, but … it's hard," she whispers, fresh tears rolling down her face. "I only saw him once, FP. On November thirtieth. It was only for a few seconds - hell, I could barely steal a glance - before they took him … away." She reaches for his hand, but finds that she meets it half-way, as if he was already doing the same. His fingertips are cold. "And now … it's like this." She frowns a little. "Does this even count as … seeing him?"

"If you want it to, it does."

"Do _you_ think it does?" 

FP sighs and rubs at his eye. "Yeah, I do. 'Cause this is all I have, so it's gotta mean something. And it does mean something …" he trails off, dipping his head for a moment, "cause he's our boy."

Alice runs her hand through her hair, before wiping at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. "You deserve to know everything, FP," she chokes out, her voice strangled with tears. "Do you want to know what happened?"

He turns to face her, gripping her hand tighter. "Not if it's at your expense."

"No," she says. "I need to tell someone. And that someone can only be you. And I think you should know."

Slowly, he nods, giving her a flicker of a reassuring smile.

Alice sighs and closes her eyes. "I found out a few days before Ascension Night, and I was still in shock and trying to wrap my head around it. I couldn't bring myself to tell you, I'm sorry," she whispers quietly. "And then, everything happened and we just … kind of fell apart, and then I was with Hal. You know all that." She opens her eyes to look at him, and FP sees something there and he … well, he doesn't know what it is. "I made so many mistakes, FP. The first one was telling Hal that I was pregnant." 

"What, you told him?" 

"Yes, FP. I had to," she says, trying to keep the anger from her tone. "I thought he'd support me, and I was supposed to be living this new, honest, proper life. So I decided there should be no secrets between us and I … I told him whose …" and then she trails off, her constricted throat unable to let her speak anymore. 

FP feels Alice's fingers uncurl from his, and then her hand drops to her side. 

"I thought he'd be angry, because he never liked you. But he was happy, and he said … he said that it didn't matter whose baby it was," Alice whispers. She meets FP's eyes for a moment, seeing that they're glassy, but he nods for her to continue. "But then … when I was about eight months along, Hal turned on me. He-"

"Did he hurt you?" FP interrupts, his voice scared and a little angry. He watches as she looks away from him, and he realises that the pain in her eyes is a silent _yes_. "Alice, please," he whispers.

She considers that this time, he won't go and beat Hal for what he did, because the fear in his voice tells her that he wants to know for his own piece of mind. Alice sighs sadly and looks back up at him. "He never hurt Charles, okay?" she watches the relief appear on his face, but the concern doesn't disappear completely. 

"But he hurt you, didn't he?"

Without a word, she nods and her chest constricts again. "I was so scared, FP. Not … not because he hit me, although I was scared he would hurt Charles, but because he threatened me. He told me th-that he would make Charles's life hell if I kept him. He said that he wouldn't father a child that wasn't his, that he wouldn't father a Jones, and I-" rapid cries and sobs cease her from telling him anything else. She can't breathe as her hands wave at him, and burning tears gush down her face. 

Without hesitation FP pulls her into him again, shushing nonsense into her hair and telling her to breathe. His mind feels numb yet it's on fire with sparks and flames of guilt and self-loathing and grief and a deep, deep sorrow. 

_"…. he wouldn't father a Jones."_

FP feels an anger rise within him as he holds the mother of his child, who seems to be trembling. As much as FP wants to blame Hal for being so close-minded towards his boy, he knows that all the blame falls on him. After all, how many men would father a child of a habitually drunken gang leader with a repute for a temper? 

After what feels like a while, FP feels a cold wind swirl around them, and he opens his eyes to see flakes of white float down to the ground. Alice must feel it too, for she pushes herself away from him to look at the sight. A thin blanket of snow coats the grass and dusts the headstones. 

"What if things had been different?" FP whispers as his gaze slowly fixates on Charles's name. "What if I wasn't such a fucking car crash?"

Alice looks up at him, slightly bewildered by his question, but he seems to be stuck in his own mind.

"You wouldn't have gone to Hal, then you wouldn't have given Charles up, and-"

"FP, stop," she warns tearfully, her voice a tired yet serious whisper. "I've spent twenty years going over and over everything I could … _should_ … have done differently. And I know that as his parents, it's going to happen, okay? But … " she trails off, waiting for him to meet her gaze. When he does, she closes her eyes for a moment. "But it doesn't make it any easier."

"No." FP shakes his head, turning away from Alice and pointing at Charles's headstone. Somehow he feels like Alice has more to say, and angry tears swim in his eyes. "Our boy shouldn't _be_ under there!" he shouts, breaking the sombre silence. The snow wildly swirls around them.

"Don't you think I _know_ that?" Alice shouts back, but her voice is made quieter by tears strangled in her throat. "Giving him away was the _worst_ fucking thing I could have done!" she cries, waving an arm at the headstone newly-dusted with snow, tears streaming down her face. "Because he didn't _have_ his mother, or his father! All he knew, _all_ his life, was that his parents didn't want him, FP! And that wasn't true! I-I wanted him _more than anything!_ I should have made sure he had a loving adoptive family but all he knew was the Sisters, but they didn't save him, and I was the only one that could save him, and I _failed_!" 

FP can only stare at her. He wants to reach out to her, but he figures that she's in such a state, she would probably push him away. In any matter, his limbs feel stuck as he _really_ processes this - all the guilt that Alice has been carrying around for a decade, and it must have destroyed her. He guessed that a week ago, but now … now, as he looks at her through burning eyes and a blurry gaze, watching the tears fall down her face and the raw pain on every inch of it, he can see it. He can _really_ see it. 

"Life's a pile of shit, Alice. Maybe not for other people but … for us, and for our boy …" FP trails off in a low whisper, shaking his head slightly. 

"What happened to Charles wasn't his fault." Her voice is almost inaudible to FP's ears, as if it's thrown around and drowned out by the snowy, stormy breeze.

"I'm not saying it was," he says, stepping closer but stopping once they're a fair distance apart. "I'm saying that you were a scared young mother being threatened to give up her son. And at that point, you … hell, you did what was best, and-"

"I made the … the wrong decision. You must hate me," she whispers, unaware that the words even fall from her mouth as she stares at the ever-falling specks of white.

"No, and _no_ ," he whispers and shakes his head. "You can't know that for certain. You can only know your grief. And it's telling you to blame yourself for something you can't know is worth blaming yourself for."

"But what if I had kept him, FP?" she asks, tilting her head to the side, her muzzy focus on him being disrupted by the ever-falling specks of white. 

He shrugs and sniffs, walking closer to her and scoffing sadly. "I don't know, Al. Maybe he'd have been fine," he says, painfully watching the way the guilt in her eyes deepens. "Maybe he'd have been captain of the football team like I was back in the day." He lets a soft but, oh, so sorrowful laugh of nostalgia, before it fades quickly. "Or maybe he wouldn't have even made it to twenty. Maybe Hal would have carried the anger all the way through his life, and maybe it would have turned phys-"

"Don't!" she cries, holding a hand over her mouth. " _Don't_ finish that sentence!"

Now one-on-one with her, FP takes his hands to the side of her face to steady her focus on him. He blinks back more tears. Perhaps he shouldn't have pushed that far, for the thought of his boy being hurt makes his own stomach churn agonizingly, and he hates the idea of making Alice feel any more pain than she is already. "Hey, I'm sorry, Alice. I know you've been carrying this for god knows how long and I can't imagine how much that must have hurt you, but … what I'm trying to say is you have no way of knowing if you made the right decision or not, okay?" 

FP pauses and lets his gaze drift over her saddened features for a few seconds. He swallows and lifts her chin with his index finger. "And not once in all these years have I ever hated you. And I don't hate you now, alright? 'Cause I don't blame you for anything."

Reluctantly, Alice nods, and attempts to stiffle the cries. She doesn't think her throat nor her thumping head can take any more crying. 

A sullen grey mist creeps in between the droplets of ice cold rain, surviving just by chance or by a very thin line of luck. Some droplets softly thump down to the damp ground, soaking into the space between the thick layer of mud and the wooden box, underneath everything else. A tired and seemingly interminable blink weighs down FP's eyelids as the rain splatters around him, and he almost wants to stop it descending from the dark sky.

After all, Charles may not have survived his fall, and the landing may not have been forgiving, but the rain is the only thing FP can protect his boy from now.

"Alice … how'd he …" FP starts, but then sighs painfully, unable to force himself to complete the sentence. 

She lays a hand on the crook of his arm, and swallows slowly. "I know what you want to ask, FP. It's okay - you have the right to know," she whispers, and he meets her eyes before she gathers enough strength to tell him. "When I gave him up, I had terms to agree with the Sisters. They offered a recurrence term, where they'd keep me posted about things he was doing well in, what he was like. But I couldn't agree to that because it would have been too painful," she says quietly, and he nods understandingly. "I thought it would have made things easier if I just didn't hear about him."

FP gets it; he figures that he probably would have done the same thing.

"Erm," Alice stumbles, wiping her eyes and trying to get her thoughts in order. "But … then there was the necessity term, where they would only call me if something really serious happened. And apparently him using drugs over and over wasn't serious enough, which it should have been, so … I only got the one call."

FP feels a knife plunge through him as the realisation hits him. He looks at Alice, his eyes wide and burning again. "He … he was addicted to drugs?"

Forcing herself to meet his terrified eyes, Alice nods, and confirms to him that Charles did, in fact, pass of a drug overdose. She squeezes his elbow because she knows exactly what's going through his mind. 

"After they called me with the news of his … death, Hal was due to visit his parents for the weekend. He took Betty and Polly with him, but I declined and said I had deadlines for the Register that couldn't be held up. I didn't want Hal knowing that Charles had … died, so the only way to keep it from him was to have the funeral that weekend. I called you the day before, because I wanted you there, even if it meant I'd have had to tell you he existed in the first place. You didn't answer, and I didn't call you again, because after downing two bottles of wine and feeling numb and depressed as hell, I convinced myself that you'd moved on in Toledo. And then … as the years went by it got harder and harder to tell you, so I just didn't. I was so fucking selfish, FP, and I'm sorry."

As soon as Alice finishes speaking, she manages to bring herself to look at FP. He isn't looking at her, though. His gaze, she presumes, is fixated somewhere among the row of snow-covered pine trees in the distance. In his eyes, he looks so far away, like he has been pulled further into the agony of his mind. She gives his elbow another squeeze and, ever so slowly, he flickers his gaze to her. 

"My … my alcoholism, Alice," he manages, his voice broken and hoarse. "Addiction is … it's genetic, right? My old man, and then me … and then our boy."

"Hey," she whispers, trying to hold herself together as she places her hands to his chest. "You told me that there's no way I could have known if I made the right choice or not-"

"No, this is … this is different," he says, anger in his voice being drowned out by sorrow and a painful culpability. "It's genetic, okay? It's not certain, but it's likely I gave our boy … the predisposition for addiction. If I did … he, god, he must have suffered so much. And that was probably why he took the drugs that … killed him."

Unable to dispute anything he said, Alice lifts one hand to the side of his face, before closing her eyes for a long moment. She can't bear to look at the overwhelming guilt in his eyes that whispers a painful _'I'm sorry'_. Tears stream down both their faces.

FP shuts his eyes tight as he tries to block out the guilt that burns an unfixable gaping hole in him. 

____________________

"How do you see Charles in me if you never properly saw him?"

Alice frowns slightly as she hears FP's hoarse voice behind her. She brushes her fingertips to the cold, wet stone, over Charles's name, and her mind casts back to their conversation in the trailer a few days ago. 

She hadn't even meant to tell FP that she couldn't look at him. But in the grief and sorrow and pain, she'd felt so out of control, and it'd just slipped from her mouth. She absently notices that he fails to bring up the fact that she ever said that in the first place, and whether it's because it's something he is too ashamed to acknowledge, or because it's something he'd rather try and bury along with many other things doesn't matter to Alice. Because either possible way, she said something that hurt him, and she hates that. 

"Because you're his father, FP. I don't need to have seen him to see him in you."

FP scoffs behind her. It's not haughty, nor is it arrogant. Alice had thought that she had lost the ability to read him this deeply when their few conversations over the past twenty years have involved nothing but snide comments. But, nevertheless she hears it; the scoff was directed towards himself, as if it was full of anger and disbelief. 

"Then … you see that your boy was just as much of a drunken, car-crash of a man as I am."

"Stop that," she warns quietly, but not being able to keep the frustration from her voice. She stands from the headstone and faces him. "That's not what I see. And you had no influence on what happened to Charles-"

"Except the fact that my _damned_ genetics probably killed him," he shoots back, his jaw tense and his hollow eyes bore into hers. 

"You can't change that, FP!"

"You shouldn't have even stayed with me in fucking _High School_ , Alice!" he yells. Every single agonizing emotion that's been building up during the past week burns a hole in his heart, and he can't hold it back anymore.

_Shit_. Alice feels a punch to her stomach at his words. Did he regret their relationship back then? Did he regret their _son_? "You weren't even an alcoholic back then!"

"And if I _had_ been?!" comes the bellow that drowns out the harsh woosh of the wind. His eyes are red-rimmed, and empty as hell, and, _oh_ , so full of rage.

"I'd still have _fucking_ loved you, you _idiot_!"

FP swallows and stares at her through angry, tear-blazed eyes. The thick flakes of snow swirl around them and the wind picks up and sends strands of their hair across their foreheads.

Alice sighs as his earlier words stab at her. "Do you regret our son?" 

FP inhales sharply and shakes his head. "No, Alice. I don't. But do you know what I do regret?" he asks, his voice gruff, as he walks closer to her. "I regret not fighting my old man when he physically stopped me from going to college. I regret staying at the Southside. I regret failing Jug and JB, and Charles. I regret changing after that G&G crap, to the point where it drove you to Hal, and then everything involving our son that followed after that."

A cold tear slips from Alice's eye as his words sink in. She knows he's a car crash - although she may not put it quite like that - and she knows that life has thrown shit at him until he couldn't take it and instead let himself plummet and succumb to the numbness of alcohol. She may have even publicly commented on it to shame him, to further secure the Northside attitude she'd forced on herself. A tiny pang of guilt had niggled at her every time, but she'd always told herself that he'd never really cared because he'd had a lifetime of being slagged off because of his choices anyway. But now, she sees that he obviously did care, and he obviously felt the sharp sting of the comments when he wasn't numb from alcohol. She makes a vow never to shame him about it again. 

She walks forwards and grabs his hands. They're cold but secure entwined with her shaking fingers. "We can't change the past, okay? We can't change the fact that you stayed on the Southside, or that stupid G&G game we let ruin our lives," she tells him, grateful for the way his eyes are calmly settled on her and patient as she speaks. "But if we'd done things differently … if we'd brought up our son, then Betty, Polly, Jughead, and JB probably wouldn't have been born," she tells him quietly. "And we were never really compatible back then, no matter how much we wanted to be, you know? There were always things in the way, and I don't know … if we had Charles … that it would have worked out for the best, especially for him."

FP lowers his head, the horrific thoughts that Alice probably couldn't say swirling around his head. _… especially for him, with his probable drug addiction; with young, unstable parents; abusive grandparents; in the run-down, gang-addled side of town._ FP nods slowly, before frowning at the feeling of her hands shaking against his. He squeezes them and looks back at her, forces himself to look her in the eye. "It's not gonna get much easier than this, is it?" he asks in a strangled whisper. _As if this is even easy at all._

Alice glances at Charles's headstone, before turning her attention back to FP. She takes her hand to the side of his face and feels another tear escape from her eye. "No. It's not. I'm sorry, FP."

"It's not your fault," he tells her earnestly, honesty in the slight breaks in his voice. Flecks of snow are in his hair, and he pushes it back from his forehead. 

"And it's not yours either," she says, giving him a reassuring smile as she watches him slightly pause at that. She searches his red-veined eyes that have dark shadows underneath them. She knows that he will never stop blaming himself for Charles's death. 

So instead, feeling as if words have run their course, she gently pulls him close and feels his arms envelop her as he returns the hug. She feels him sway her as she rests the side of her head to his chest, gazing at Charles's grave. 

"We should bring flowers next time," he whispers into her hair as he, too, focuses his numb gaze on the headstone. 

Alice frowns and pushes herself off him slowly, searching his eyes for an explanation. She had thought that he wouldn't want to come back after enduring the whirlwind of agonizing emotions and pain today. 

But the reason she asked him here was because she needed closure, and she knew, somehow, that she couldn't have got it if FP didn't have it either. And, of course, she wanted him to have closure, too. They may not have seen eye to eye for the past thirty years, but it's important to her all the same.

"That's why I see him in you," she whispers, tears of pride making her voice strangled in her throat. At least, she believes he would have been as mellow and as benevolent as FP, perhaps with some of his temper, and as stubborn and as resolute as her. To imagine and to believe is better than not knowing at all, she has found. 

FP smiles softly and lets his forehead fall slowly against hers, exhaustion suddenly washing over him. Nothing will take the pain of today away for either of them, but maybe this is how they start to mourn as Charles's parents. 

Some while later, the snow storm settles and leaves a thick blanket of white over the ground. The breeze is still cold with the ambience of winter, and the snow crunches beneath Alice and FP's feet as they make their way, slowly, back to the car park.


End file.
